We read the whole of Hebrews 4, beginning with verse 1. Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them, but the word preached did not profit them. not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said in Psalm 95, as I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest, although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, and God did rest the seventh day from all his works, and in this place again, if they shall enter into my rest. Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief, again he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, after so long a time, as it is said, Today, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. For if Jesus, the Old Testament equivalent of Joshua, for if Joshua had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. For the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." Seeing then that we have a great High Priest that is passed into or more literally, through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Our text this evening is Hebrews 4, verses 12 and 13, which we shall now reread so that it's firmly in front of us. For the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." Beloveds, Hebrews 3 and 4 develop the truth of rest from the use of that word and the argument in Psalm 95, which we sang earlier. Hebrews 4 itself speaks of three instances of rest. First, there is the Old Testament day of rest, the seventh day of the week, the Sabbath, rooted in creation. Second, there is the Old Testament land of rest, the land of Canaan. This idea of rest marks a development in the idea of rest even within the Old Testament. Third, there is what we may call New Testament rest, rest in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead, rest from sin, rest through faith, the rest of covenant salvation. And this, of course, is a much higher rest and the rest which is pointed to by the Old Testament day of rest and the Old Testament land of rest. Verses 10 and 11 are the two verses before our text. It is worth noting at this stage that verse 10, I believe, refers to Christ's rest. and that Jesus is the He mentioned in that verse. For He, Christ, that has entered into His rest, He also hath ceased from His own works as God did from His. So that the Lord Jesus ceased from His work of purchasing our redemption and entered His rest on the first day of the week, the Lord's Day, when He rose from the dead. So the parallel in the verse is that God ceased from His work of creation and entered into His rest on the seventh day of the week, whereas Christ ceased from His work of redemption and entered into His rest on the first day of the week, which we call the Lord's Day. You see the parallel in verse 10. For he Christ that is entered into his rest, he also has ceased from his own works as God did from his at the creation. Then verse 11 speaks about our rest. And our rest is our entering into Christ's rest. Let us labor, that is, let us be zealous and diligent. Let us labor, therefore, to enter into that rest, the rest of Christ, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief, the example of the Old Testament people of God in the wilderness. They didn't believe. They didn't enter into the land of rest, and their carcasses fell in the wilderness. Which brings us to our text in verses 12 and 13. Our text explains why. Why we should enter into that rest. and why we should avoid falling into unbelief. How are we to do this? What practical considerations does this Word of God give to us to help us to enter into rest in Christ? Because I'm assuming you all want to know more of this rest and peace in Jesus Christ. So, the question then is, what is the contribution of our text to encourage us to enter into this rest? Something, of course, that's of help to us as we prepare to come as a congregation to the Lord's Supper next Sunday morning. So, let us consider entering God's rest first by knowing God's omniscience, that's verse 13, and entering God's rest by experiencing God's Word, that's verse 12. If you were to go home and read Hebrews chapter 4 without thought of this sermon, You might be puzzled why the greatest chapter in the Bible on rest contains such a striking affirmation of God's omniscience, that is, of God's knowledge of all things, such as is contained in verse 13. God's knowledge of all things is stated negatively and positively. Verse 13 reads, neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight. And positively, all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. This same verse not only states this truth negatively and then positively, but is very obviously an all-embracing word. Neither is there any creature, there are no exceptions, neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight. But all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." In fact, you could say that this verse contains much of the key biblical vocabulary dealing with God's omniscience or His knowledge of all things. It speaks of His eyes and even the sight of His eyes. It says that everything is manifest, opened to Him and even naked. This, of course, means very obviously that God sees and knows all creatures, including and especially angels and men, that He knows all things about all creatures, that He knows all things about all creatures thoroughly, completely, eternally. In this regard, God is very obviously so much different from all of mankind. God knows everything about us so that He can always read us far more easily than we can read a book. Even if we mask our face so that, let's assume we are intending to be devious, our facial expressions don't give us away. If we cover our eyes with sunglasses, to try and hide our feelings because your eyes can sometimes reveal what you're thinking. Obviously, that's no protection from God's omniscience. Sometimes, too, as human beings who are sinful and live in a fallen world, we do not say what we are thinking. Sometimes, too, it is wise not to say what we are thinking And you can do that in the spirit of charity and without breaking the ninth commandment. And if we were to dwell in darkness, hiding ourselves away from everybody else, living inside four walls, behind closed doors, all of this, of course, would be totally useless with respect to the omniscient God. And you are probably familiar with Psalm 139 which explains some of these things and different things much more fully. But these general truths about God's omniscience only really count with us if we take these things practically and individually to heart so that we can say personally, Thou God seest me. And if we don't grasp that God sees us, We can say all sorts of learned and nice things about God's omniscience, but it doesn't make any difference to us. So that each and every child of God here tonight must know that before God, though we are nicely attired for Sunday worship, we are totally exposed, open and naked. With Him we never have anywhere to run, and there's nowhere where we can hide. The problem, so to speak, with God's omniscience for us fallen, depraved people, according to our flesh, is the sinfulness of mankind and of us individually. This is what Jesus Christ said God sees in our hearts. Mark 7 and verse 21. For from within, out of the heart of men proceed, listen carefully, evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile the man. God sees it all. Hebrews 4.13, neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." That is, he's the one to whom we must give an account. To the wicked, the thought of God's omniscience is understandably terrifying, which explains an awful lot of human behavior. This voice, man's conscience must be drowned out. We know that some people choose to drown this out by getting drunk or high on drugs. Some people seem even to be afraid of silence, so they must have music lest they should think about something serious. Many people, even for this reason, prefer busyness. and others—this is particularly the spirit of our age—try desperately to convince themselves that God is not by attributing the universe and life to time and chance and evolution. But in general, this is a thought that terrifies and scares mankind, that God sees and that God judges righteously. This is also the attraction, of course, of pagan religions and the false church with its goal of salvation by man's own works and wills, a substitute to placate the angry, righteous, omniscient God. As Jesus said, men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. and they will not come to the light, lest their deeds should be reproved." This truth of God's omniscience is an important one in the context of Hebrews 3 and 4, which reflect upon Israel in the wilderness. You remember that most of Israel were unbelieving But the heart you see, and its unbelief, is invisible. Man cannot see it. If you are here tonight and do not believe in Jesus, nobody knows. They can't see your heart. This, of course, given the foolishness of man, leads some to think, well, can God really see that we Israelites don't believe? You will remember from your reading of Exodus through Deuteronomy and the reflection of later scripture that Israel's unbelief manifested itself especially in one thing, murmuring, grumbling, and complaining. But most of the murmuring in the visible church at that time was not public. It was in their tents, in their own private living quarters. Moses and Aaron didn't hear 99% of the grumbling and they couldn't hear it. Did God hear it? Does God care? Most of the people thought, not really. But of course, the fabric of the tent and the darkness or no barrier to God's omniscience. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. God saw the invisible unbelief in their hearts, heard their unbelieving murmuring, and caused their highly visible carcasses to fall in the wilderness so that they could not enter into the land of rest because of unbelief. And if we move for a moment to the New Testament Scriptures, it's worth pointing out that the truth of God's omniscience is especially mentioned in connection with hypocrites among the visible people of God. Let me quote you some verses from the Gospel according to John. John 5, verse 42, Christ's words about the Jews. I know you that ye have not the love of God in you. I know this about you. I see your heart. The love of God is not there in the visible people of God. In John chapter 2, we read concerning false professors of Jesus these words when he was at Jerusalem for the Passover and when many believed in inverted commas. where many believed in his name when they saw the miracles which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man, for he knew what was in man." And then moving from the Jews in general to the false professors of Jesus, To Judas, one of the inner circle, the twelve disciples, the traitor, Jesus said, Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? The other eleven don't know who he is, but I know. I know the heart. And so later Jesus deliberately gave him the sop and told him to hurry up and do what he was planning to do, namely, to betray Him to the cross. Hebrews 3 verse 12 says, But how is it that people really know and grasp God's omniscience? I throw that out as an open question for you. Think about it. How is it that people really know and grasp and experience the truth of God's omniscience personally? Because you'll understand that this is a spiritual knowledge that simply does not come through writing a philosophical dissertation upon it or even, by itself, reading a theological book on the character of God. You understand, and I'm sure everyone here understands, that it's relatively easy to grasp this truth rationally as some sort of idea that flits through the brain without it making any effect whatsoever upon your life, without causing real fear of the Lord. And so the answer to the question, how do you, how do I, know and feel the truth of God's omniscience is this, by experiencing God's word as it searches and exposes our own hearts. That's it. The Christian says, in effect, I know that God is omniscient because I read the Bible and I hear it preached on the Lord's Day, and through this means God has showed me a little of what He sees in my sinful heart and life." That's how you know. Really know. This is the connection between verses 12 and 13 in Hebrews 4. In verse 12, The Word of God comes and it is said to pierce our soul and spirit and discern the thoughts and intents of the heart. And then verse 13 goes on to speak of God's omniscience. So the connection is that it is the Word of verse 12 that shows and brings home to me the truth that God knows everything about me. You may have already gathered from what I've said about the Word of God in verse 12 what I personally take the Word of God to refer to here. The Word of God in verse 12, the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, is variously interpreted or understood. Some say the word here refers to the essential Word, the second person in the Holy Trinity who became flesh for us and our salvation. The Word means Jesus Christ. Others say the Word of God here is Scripture, the written Word. which is read and preached. And with most commentators, I take it to refer to the latter, Scripture, though with the understanding that Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word, is the one who speaks to us through Scripture, the written Word. So it is that verse 12 begins by affirming three things about God's Word. Namely, one, quick. Two, powerful. And three, sharper than any two-edged sword. I should clarify here the word quick. you understand that quick here doesn't mean fast or speedy. Quick here means living, as it does in the Apostles' Creed, which we read earlier. Jesus Christ comes to judge the quick, or the living, and the dead. We speak of the quickening of a child in its mother's womb when the child so moves that the mother knows very clearly that there's a living baby inside her, because it's showing signs of life, quick and life. So, the Word of God is quick, that is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword And these three things are not unrelated, they are intimately connected. These three words concern the Word of God's ability to penetrate and pierce us. To penetrate and pierce man's heart or soul or conscience and so to judge our thoughts and motivations and intentions. So if I were to ask you, what is the most penetrating and piercing thing? What is it that can cut our consciences to the quick, so to speak, and make us bleed in our souls Because that's what cutting does, it makes us bleed. You would have to say that something that's alive, something that's living, will obviously penetrate further and quicker than something that's dead or inert or idle. And obviously something that's weak and futile won't penetrate as deep or as far as something that's powerful. and effectual and active. It can get deeper into us. And obviously something that's dull or blunt won't cut as quickly or deeply, but something that's sharp will, something that's really sharp, and something that's sharp on both sides will penetrate further. And this soul penetrating and heart piercing thing is the Word of God, for it is quick or living. It is powerful and it is sharper than any two-edged sword. So it is sharp to pierce, it has power behind it, a deep, hard thrust, and it is living so that it can even guide itself. into our souls. Our text then underscores this point further with two images. This Word of God pierces even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit. That's the first image. And I take soul and spirit to be essentially the same thing. Soul, spirit, or even heart, and mind, so that they all refer to man's inner spiritual nature, though from different perspectives. When an attack says that the Word of God pierces even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, it's not to be taken literally as if the two could be separated by a good, sharp, swift blow. because literally man's soul or spirit are never divided. His body and his soul can be and usually are divided at death, but not his soul and spirit. So this is an emphatic and startling way of speaking indicating how God's word pierces and penetrates us. The second image is that the word of God pierces even to the dividing asunder of the joints and marrow. Now we're speaking about human anatomy. The joints are where two bones meet. Two bones meet, the bit in the middle, that's the joint. The marrow, that refers to the inner part of the bone. We'll keep it simple here. I have no interest in getting technical. Now, one could refer literally to the dividing asunder of two bones. You could separate them at the joint. One could even speak, perhaps, of the dividing asunder of the bone and the marrow within the bone. But one cannot literally refer to the dividing asunder of the joints between two bones and the marrow within a bone. It doesn't literally make sense. But it makes sense. It's a hyperbolic way of speaking of the piercing power of the Word of God. The Word of God not only, so to speak, divides bones at the joints, or even divides the bone from the marrow inside the bone, the Word of God divides joints from the marrow that is inside the bone. Then verse 12 drops the imagery and explains the hyperbolic imagery by saying simply in literal terms, the Word of God is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. That's the idea that the imagery has been making. This is necessary because naturally fallen man flatters himself. I do good. I mean well. I am good. But Jesus Christ comes through the gospel and by His Spirit to expose man's heart to Himself so that we know what's inside us. God already knows, but God comes so that we know what's in us. And this Word of God that pierces us is living and powerful and lethally sharp, so that it penetrates and pierces, so that it cuts through the barrier and armour of lies and self-justification and shows us what we really are like. And the Reformed faith calls this, what we're really like, total depravity. The Word of God shows us what we really think and why our thoughts are sinful. It shows us what our intentions really are and why they're evil. It shows what is our true motivation, not what we told ourselves or said to other people, but what really drives us. The Word of God, then, wielded by Jesus Christ by his Holy Spirit reveals to us the pride in the things that we say and the selfishness behind our deeds and the lust for power and public acclaim, our own secret devilish motivations. And all of this is experienced by us in one word. Think about it. Think about it in the language of our text. A living, powerful, two-aged sword that's lethally sharp thrust into us. That's going to be painful. The division of soul and spirit, hyperbole, an overblown way of speaking, no doubt, But certainly, that sounds painful. The piercing of joints and marrow, that's going to be sore. This is the pain of a sharp, cutting, penetrating blade going deep, deep inside us. And sometimes, The piercing work of the Word of God showing us our sins in the light of God's omniscience makes us cry out audibly, just as sometimes we cry out with pain when, let's say, we hit our thumb with a hammer. We cry out. Sometimes the Word of God is so sharp, exposing our sins, that we simply cry. We cry. David did in the Psalms. That was the sharp two-edged sword exposing his sin. Sometimes this sharp two-edged sword thrust into us feels far sorer than physical blows. Sometimes the Christian thinks to himself, I would gladly exchange, if I could, the pain which I feel over my own sin and folly for physical pain, because this spiritual pain and grief of guilt is far worse. If you had asked David when he was penning Psalm 51 which he would have preferred, there is no question as to which answer he would have given. The guilt of our own sin. inner hidden sin that only God knows as the omniscient one and which He then shows us by the Word of God read and preached. And you can see the relevance of this with regard to your coming to the Lord's Supper next Sunday morning. the knowledge of sin and the looking for all of our salvation outside ourselves in Jesus Christ and coming as pierced sinners to the cross and to the supper of the pierced one. And you will also remember the context of the book of Hebrews. Hebrews especially is a warning. It's a warning against apostasy. more especially the warning of individual apostasy, that is, of the professing Christian departing from Jesus Christ for something else that seems more appealing and leaving the church of the living God. Hebrews 4 verse 11 says, Lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. This can happen when the heart grows cold to the things of Jesus Christ, when we drift away from Him, when we are allured by the world, and when we aren't even willing to admit it to ourselves. And that's what Hebrews 3 calls at least it's an instance of it, the deceitfulness of sin. When a professing believer starts to flirt with false doctrine, realizing how much easier it would make his life. When he toys with dating an unbeliever and even goes out with him or her. When he, unseen by his wife, starts watching pornography on the internet, when he begins to fall away from church attendance by missing services unnecessarily because he doesn't really feel like it and his heart isn't in it, when he starts to lust after someone else's spouse or even flirt at work, and you could multiply those sorts of examples many times, then the believer needs to feel the sharp edge of God's Word and thereby start believing again the truth about God that He really is omniscient, that He sees what I've been doing, what I am doing. when we begin to bleed inwardly, we confess our sin and put it away and go to the cross. The message of Hebrews 3 and 4 and Psalm 95 is that those who don't do this, their carcasses fall in the wilderness. They don't make it to the eternal land of rest. So let us labor and be diligent, therefore, to enter into that rest. Let us rather be glad when we are shown our sin than refuse it. Let us understand that true spiritual rest does not come by saying, I don't want to see my sin. I refuse to look at it. That may give some brief sense of rest, but it won't bring the true rest of God. Let us rather understand that through the sharp two-edged sword and the serious unrest that guilt brings in our souls, that that is the only way to experiencing the rest of God. because it leads us to Jesus Christ in repentance and makes us focus on that rest which we can only have in Him when He rose from the dead for our justification on the Lord's Day. And in this consciousness, beloved, let us look forward to and prepare for the Lord's Supper next Sunday morning. Amen. Let us pray. Our Father in Heaven, bless to us the Word of God and bless it to us particularly from the perspective of this text that we may not love darkness, but that we may love light and that we may open ourselves up to the searching, penetrating power of Thy Word so that we may confess our sins and come to Jesus Christ more and more and afresh as the one who gives rest to our weary souls. For we pray in his name. Amen.